Attrition – The rate at which cars drop out of a race. It can be the result of mechanical failures or crashes.
Hopping on the back of the four-wheeler, Tommy drove us over to the driver introductions were they introduced each of us, one by one, and then had us do a quick interview. Dad’s was the most comical and he even got a standing ovation, as did grandpa, from the crowd.
“It’s anyone’s race,” Dad said to the announcer with a smirk directed at the other drivers.
Dad smoked us in hot laps. He clearly had the cold temperatures pegged and Justin wasn’t far behind him.
The trick with the cooler temperatures was the tire pressure. The colder the air, the more horsepower you had but the car reacted entirely different in the cold resulting in lower tire pressures.
Tires, on a night like tonight, were just as important as the setup.
Tommy and Willie were all over it for me. That was one of the vast differences between me and my dad. Where I relied on Tommy to change my setups based on my feedback, Dad changed it himself. He knew sprint car setups better than he understood Cup cars.
Racing with my dad, my grandpa, and some of the guys who had helped me along the way was enough to send me into some sort of hysteria but I held my own and no tears fell, that I like to admit, but I’d probably be lying.
I was up front with my dad, grandpa, and Justin on the front row of the four abreast with Cody and my buddies Shane and Easton behind us.
Dad revved forward, taunting me as he paraded around 4-wide. I did the same when the flagman motioned for us to do hot-laps.
The race itself was a wash really when it got underway. You had guys like Justin and Tyler who dominated the early part of the 100-lap feature they had split into two segments and then you had my dad and grandpa who were dominating the final fifty. I wasn’t in the mix during the second half and just hung back in seventh for most of the race.
The track was shredding tires like a road grader. I couldn’t keep my right rear from sliding all over the place. Dad and grandpa seemed to have no problems with it and flew around the half-mile track with no issues.
That was until lap fourteen of the second segment, a lap I would never forget. It was a lap that changed everything.
They were running one and two with dad leading and grandpa right behind him. I had a clear view in front of me as I made it up to fifth and got around Easton.
Without warning, grandpa shot to the high side in the sweeping corner of one and two and then bounced off the wall coming out of two onto the straight stretch. He cut down right in front of dad.
It wasn’t something grandpa would ordinarily have done. He wouldn’t make that move, on someone, on the outside, at a place like Knoxville. But he did, and we watched in horror as the wall bit back hard with dad on the inside of him, taking them both out.
It all happened in a split second.
Before I could see what went wrong or what was happening through the dust, sprint cars were flipping and metal was everywhere. The flashing tree of red lights on the wall only confirmed my theories.
They stopped us where we were. Tow trucks and ambulances blocked our view and I knew it was on purpose. Any time an accident happened of this nature, the safety crews, sensing the destruction, blocked the view of the drivers and spectators by design.
There is an eerie feeling that comes over a track when tragedy strikes. Even before any news release happens, drivers feel it in their bones. If you’ve been around racing long enough, you know when a wreck is fatal, you just do.
When the pace car brought us down past the wreck in turn two, I knew something wasn’t right just looking at it.
Grandpa’s car was up against the wall, the top wing was laying some twenty feet away. Another car, a driver out of Australia was smashed against him pinning the car to the wall.
Dad’s car was upside down on the outside barrier, the rear axle assembly was broken off and lying on the other side of the wall in the grass field. Cars and parts were scattered everywhere.
Justin stopped his car alongside them, ignoring the safety crews trying to push him back away. He knocked one to the ground, ripping his gear away to get loose. Tommy, Willie, Spencer, and Aiden who were in the pit grandstands were already down on the track hovered around their cars, motioning toward the safety crew for help.
I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t speak. They had the push trucks move us forward to give the ambulances better access.
My hands were trembling so violently when I passed by the carnage, the wheel was jerking from side-to-side in my hands. I could feel the adrenaline radiating throughout my body, surging in my joints, hot and blinding all at once. I felt like I was going to vomit any second.
I blinked, steadily trying to focus enough to catch a glimpse of the two of them, but they were still inside the cars with safety official’s frantically working around them. I had no idea if they were injured or not at this point, but the eerie feelings wasn’t helping me and the way everyone was screaming around them, with no movement from my dad or grandpa, wasn’t reassuring.
Grandpa didn’t hit hard per se, it was just the way he hit the wall that was disturbing and the way dad’s car was pushed against the wall wasn’t comforting to me. I knew something horrible had happened.
When I finally reached them, no one was speaking. No one said a goddamn thing to me. They just stared at me, their faces poignantly frozen in shock.
Say something!
I looked between Justin and Tyler who stared back at me, their faces white, immobile and cold. Justin blinked slowly as if he was trying not to feel anything at that point. I could see the steady quick rise and fall of his chest; his breathing sped with each breath knowing the gravity of the situation.
The wind ceased, the fog hovered just upon us. Thick and dense, the moisture remained crisp cutting through the fog. Sound was non-existent, it was still. It was as if the world suddenly stopped spinning on its axis knowing something was wrong. When I looked back at Grandpa’s car and the safety crews weren’t moving quickly like they were around Dad’s car, I had that sick rigid feeling instantly.
I didn’t have to hear the words to know, I felt it.
Something in me focused on my dad laying in the dirt about twenty feet away, paramedics frantically teeming around him.
My heart sunk, literally dropped with my knees as they gave way beside him.
Pain.
This pain was excruciating and unlike anything I had ever felt before.
It was radiating in waves over me, blinding and flashing. Every thought or movement sent another jolt of stabbing pains through me.
I felt nauseous. I just wanted the pain to stop.
Passing out felt like it could have been a blessing.
Pain. So much pain.
I couldn’t see anything, blackness surrounded me but somewhere I heard voices and the faint sound of engines rumbling.
My ears felt like they were on fire with the sound of a whooshing noise I couldn’t place. The pain was so strong, so searing that I wasn’t sure I could continue for much longer without passing out. I wanted to pass out. I was begging for it.
I felt it then, another movement. From my hair to my toes, fire shot throughout me as I dimly became aware of someone touching me. They were touching my shoulders and my neck as if they were checking my pulse. The flare of agony spread throughout my body, bursting into flames. It was too much and I moaned trying to get away. I didn’t want to be touched or moved. It hurt too much.
What happened?
Everything began to swirl in sickening loops. The sharp pain rose throughout me from my stomach into my head fighting against the adrenaline and I vomited.
Why did I hurt so badly?
It made no sense, but abruptly my brain focused on one image. An image I would never forget.
The wreck.
I struggled against the pain to focus. My dad came to mind, was he okay?
“D... ad?” I called out but my voice sounded different, rough and forced. I’d never heard it before.
Despite this, my body just wouldn’t respond, no matter what I did. I panicked.
Pain was all I felt now. I wasn’t moving but I felt it. Or was I moving?
I tried to be still in that moment, wanting the pain to subside with no movements but just trying to breathe was a challenge, a miserable effort I didn’t have.
There was pressure on my face and cheek as they removed my helmet and realized that someone was touching my face, sweeping my hair aside. A sharp spike of pain spread from below my eyes to wrap around my head and down my neck. It felt like someone was slowly pouring warm water over my forehead but no one was there that I could see.
What....
I moaned once again and tried to get away from it, pain instantly tearing through my body at the movement.
Next thing I knew I was vomiting again which increased the agony throughout and my stomach knotted at the onset.
Another wave of nausea hit me and I became aware of the sound of Axel’s muffled sobs close to my ear.
Axel? Was he okay?
I tried to move but couldn’t. I did nothing. I vomited again, I think. I couldn’t focus. All I saw was light, white fuzzy lights mixing with yellow and reds and the occasional whisper of a voice. People hovered over me moving frantically but it only made me dizzy.
I wanted to ask him what had happened. Did I do something wrong and why I was in so much pain but then I remembered again.
Images and sounds rushed around, none clear but just as horrifying. I was ready to vomit again.
My front wheels clipping dad’s, the white hard concrete wall, flipping along the backstretch, the catch fence and then the ground.
Oh, God what did I do?
“M... m... my... d... a ....” Speech was an effort, and one I didn’t have.
I couldn’t even make the thought completely form in my head, or find my voice. My head throbbed, sharp pains being driven through my skull into my brain like a hammer driving a nail. I felt the hot liquid again, pouring over my scalp, ears and mouth. Dripping and wet. I tasted blood, lots of blood and vomited again. I could feel the blood coming from my nose mixing with dirt.
My mind drifted again.
I couldn’t bear to think that I caused the wreck. I couldn’t have.
Was he even alive? If I feel this, what is he feeling?
I tried to move.
“Ok-k-k-kay ...” I croaked, struggling to make my body obey. “M-y-y-y... D... ad ...?”
Why couldn’t I form words?
“The safety crew is helping him,” the voice was Axel. I think. “Just stay still, Dad. Please! Oh, God …”
“Jameson?” another voice was beside my ear. I felt the cool breeze and more pain at the sound. “We need you to remain still. Please try not to move.”
“O... k-k-k... a... y?” I tried again to get up but... fuck, I couldn’t do anything.
My body wouldn’t respond to even the basic commands. I felt paralyzed but I knew I couldn’t be.
Just as I attempted to get my elbows under me, I collapsed and my head hit something hard.
I wanted to scream with the pain swallowing me, but I couldn’t.
I begged within to will this feeling away. To will the pain away.
I couldn’t see. Everything appeared distorted, blurry and smoggy.
I could fall apart later, not now though, I kept telling myself.
Axel’s voice was at my ear again. “You guys tangled coming out of two when grandpa got up against the wall.”
I wrecked with him? Oh, God, this couldn’t be real. It’s not real, no, I won’t let it be.
I tried to move once again but the pain shook me through to my core this time, palpitating rapidly around my ears and eyes. I screamed, but no sound came. Nothing.
No movement.
No sound.
“Dad,” Axel asked frantically, knowing. He was scared. “Can you move your legs?”
Again, I attempted to move but something shifted inside my chest and it felt like someone placed a thousand pound weight on my chest. The pain was instant, blinding again. Grunting in pain, I fought once again not to pass out. At this point, passing out was what I wanted. I couldn’t continue to feel this. I wanted to pass out. I begged for it. I needed it.
I vomited as the agony increased instead of lessening. I couldn’t endure this much longer, I was sure of that. Panic rose up, I couldn’t take this much longer, but then again, I die either. I couldn’t leave Sway and the kids. I couldn’t leave my family.
“Jameson, we need to transport you to the hospital,” a voice said, concerned, apprehensive. “You have a severe open head injury. Please stay as still as possible.”
No wonder I hurt so badly.
I could faintly see my surroundings and heard the paramedics hurriedly moving around me, but I didn’t see them around Dad’s car. The mangled chaos of destroyed sprint cars obscured my view of him but I caught a glimpse of his prone figure.
I could feel the pain in my entire body. It throbbed and pounded inside of me, everywhere, all around and in every breath just waiting to take over, should I let it. As much as I tried to hold it off, I wasn’t sure I could any longer.
I saw my dad clearly after a moment but he wasn’t moving, nothing, just lying perfectly still.
I gave up.
I couldn’t take the pain any longer.
How could this be? How... why?
“Be careful with his head,” I told the paramedic sweeping my tears away with the sleeve of my driver’s suit. “He’s... injured.”
“Kid, we know that,” he barked at me frantically. It wasn’t meant to be rude, but simply from a man trying to do his job saving my dad. “Now, I need you to back away. He’s losing a lot of blood right now.”
I knew that. It was all over the place. On me, and him, and pooling in the dirt below. His head was bleeding, his nose, ears and mouth. He was vomiting and more blood.
This was not good. That was not good at all.
He was struggling to breathe. Each intake of breath seemed forced and constricted.
I was torn. I wasn’t sure who to run to, my dad or my grandpa. Justin was huddled around Grandpa along with Lane and Cole. Tommy was looking from Dad to Grandpa, as well, wondering who to check on first.
The imminent landing of two helicopters in the infield caught my attention knowing help would be here soon. The lined up haulers were quickly moved to allow for a safer landing.
Turning my attention back to the wreck, everything stood still again.
It was like watching a horrible aftermath unfurl in slow, agonizing motion. To me, everyone’s once frantic movements were still. Time stopped, wind ceased as I focused on two legends—the greatest racers our sport had ever seen—neither one moving.
Grandpa hadn’t moved and showed no signs of response; his body was limp, lifeless as they performed CPR on him. Paramedics, safety crews, Spencer and Aiden were all crowded around with Justin holding his neck and head still as they moved him on to a back board and then stretcher, continuing CPR.
Justin was frantically yelling out orders to the paramedics trying to get them to hurry but I think they knew.
Death hovered in the air, suppressing and vaporous like the fog.
Two helicopters landed. The first took my grandpa and the other took my dad.
Spencer and Lane went with Grandpa while Tommy and I went with my dad. Everyone else drove the eighty miles to the University of Iowa Hospital where they were transporting both of them.
I couldn’t tell you what they were doing to my dad on the way there, everything seemed rushed and I couldn’t focus. It took all of my control not to vomit right along with him.
When we landed, he quit breathing on his own.
Lane met me outside the trauma center and told me they performed CPR the entire way on grandpa but nothing was working. When they got him into the trauma center, they hooked him up to monitors and were able to get a faint heartbeat but brain damage was a concern at that point.
Lane, Justin and Cole stayed with him while Spencer, Tommy and me followed the stretcher Dad was on. Aiden left to get my mom and grandma who knew nothing at that point.
They wouldn’t let us in the room and the doors slammed shut behind him as the hospital staff rushed all around him. The three of us stood there, frozen outside the doors.
They eventually kicked us out into the waiting room to wait with everyone else.
That was when it hit me that every one of these people in here was experiencing the same mind-numbing thoughts. They were hoping and praying for an outcome that wouldn’t break them.
Some hid it well; others didn’t and openly cried.
The guy next to me talked about needing ice cubes in his water bottle. His wife nodded and looked over their medical insurance plan probably wondering if their policy covered all the reasons they were here.
An older man across from Justin was slouched, sleeping. A younger woman, who I assumed was his daughter, was knitting next to him and kicked him occasionally when he snored.
All of these people were waiting. Just like us.
We weren’t a famous racing family right then. We were just like everyone else in that waiting room.
The guys around me were texting their loved ones, or whatever they were doing but I did nothing. I sat there staring at the man snoring in front of me, and his daughter knitting. I wouldn’t know what to say to Lily at this point and I couldn’t speak to my mom, I couldn’t be the one to tell her this.
After another moment of silence, I couldn’t sit there any longer.
Spencer and I went back to the trauma center and checked to see if anything had changed but they stopped us outside the doors.
The media was hovering, too. They wanted to know what was going on and soon every single person who was at that racetrack was at the hospital in the waiting rooms with us. That was about the time word got out to the media and our phones were blowing up with phone calls from everyone from Simplex to Dad’s crew members on his Cup team. They all wanted to know what had gone wrong and I couldn’t tell them. I didn’t know what went wrong.
It was in that exact moment when I saw the number of the NASCAR CEO flash across my phone that I realized what this meant and I scrambled to find some sort of justification.
The fifteen-time champion of the NASCAR Cup series had been critically injured racing in something other than what his sponsor paid him to race. I knew what that meant for him.
“Jesus Christ!” I screamed throwing my phone down the hallway when it kept ringing. Immediately I fell to my knees outside the door to the trauma room where they had my dad and fell in Spencer’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably.
The possibility of death hovers over every turn when you race. But you never think it could happen to you or to someone you’re close to. At least I didn’t. Even after Ryder, I still had a false pretense to what it even meant. Now, it wasn’t just hovering, it was suffocating us.
The part that bothered me the most was here were two men, two legends, who had each reached the commanding levels rarely achieved in any sport and their lives hung in the balance attached to machines.
Machines were breathing for them, machines were beating their hearts.
All we could do was wait.
Wait on time and wait on a machine.
Thousands of devoted fans and family... the entire world waited.